Sources of Wisdom & Authority Flashcards
2 Timothy 3:16
‘all scripture is God-breathed’
What is the dictation theory view?
It’s conservative & objective.
The Holy Spirit directly moved biblical writers.
What does Augustine claim about the Bible?
There are no contradictions or falsehoods affirmed in it.
Believing otherwise would have ‘disastrous consequences’ because that would cast doubt on the entire thing.
What did the enlightenment period bring about for biblical criticism?
During this period, scientific, historical & literary methods of analysis improved.
This led to evidence of scientific & historical inaccuracies & literary evidence (e.g. writers had different styles) - none of this looked like the work of an omniscient being, it became difficult to ignore the human influence.
What did Irenaeus claim about scripture?
That they’re ‘perfect’ because they were “spoken by the Word of God and his Spirit”.
The challenge that the enlightenment period brought resulted in different theories of biblical inspiration.
What are these theories?
Conservative/objective theories:
- Literalism
- Plenary verb inspiration
Liberal/subjective
Neo-orthodox
What are the view of the conservative/objective theories:
- Literalism
- Plenary verb inspiration
Literalism; objective (mind-independent), denied any challenge that the Bible was the exact word of God
Plenary verb inspiration; there’s evidence of human influence as the Bible is the work of divine minds & humans - still God’s exact word.
What are the view of these theories?
- Liberal/subjective
- Neo-orthodox
Liberal/subjective; accept the writing of the Bible was a human process, not exact word of God thus leaving meaning up for interpretation.
Neo-orthodox; Bible is not exact word of God, it’s a miraculous document through which the word of God can be heard.
What view does Ken Ham take?
What does he argue?
Literalism, he is a literalist.
He argues that the Bible is all or nothing, either all true or none of it.
He denies evidence of human influences uncovered in the enlightenment period (15th-18th c.).
What are the two main arguments against literalism?
Rejection & conflict with science
- Science tells us about evolution & that our earth is billions of years old, how can this be true if we are to take the Bible literally?
We don’t have the original manuscript of the Bible.
- In most instances, copies were made centuries later, and often differ from one another. Textual criticism suggests parts were added later - questioning authenticity of Paul’s letters & the ending of Mark’s gospel.
Plenary verb is another conservative objective view of inspiration, meaning ‘every word inspired’.
What does it accept & acknowledge that literalism doesn’t?
Evidence of human influence on the Bible, the words come directly from God but the gospel writers also had some influence.
What view and argument does W.L. Craig take in regard to inspiration?
Plenary verb inspiration.
He argues biblical inerrancy (free from error) is the view that “everything that the Bible affirms to be true is true.
There is metaphorical & symbolic language in the Bible, this allowed Christians who hold this view to take stories such as Genesis as symbolic.
What does B. Ehrman claim is ‘impossible’?
To reconcile the differences in the birth narritives, such as those between Luke & Matthew.
“If Matthew is right that they fled to Egypt, how can Luke be right that they went back to Nazareth a month later? The chronology doesn’t work.”
What does N. Geisler respond to Ehrman’s claims?
It doesn’t prove that the Bible contains an error. It could simply be that we don’t understand how the seemingly contradictory passages are to be harmonised.
Passages appearing incompatible only shows we do not know everything, it can’t prove one them are false.
What is the liberal, subjective view of inspiration?
It is a product of the human mind, not the perfect word of God.
What was written down was whatever the authors took away from witnessing or hearing of such events - human interpretation.
A human record of divine events.
